This is SO excellent, thank you. I do have an anecdotal story about the whole Stephan Bandera bogeyman meme. ruschia has been promoting this archetype for decades. Once upon a time in the mid 1990s, I lived and worked in Ukraine and had a lot of Ukrainian friends who were Gen Xers like me. Most were graduates of Shevchenko University and came from educated Ukrainian families that spoke Ukrainian at home and grew up speaking Ukrainian in the 70s and 80s. One of my girlfriends told me this story that happened to her: she was wearing a long maxi skirt that I had gifted her (it was still hard to get affordable, nice clothes in the 90s in Ukraine) and was riding a bus with a friend and they were having a lively conversation in Ukrainian. As they got off at their stop, this older woman behind them stepped on the maxi skirt and tore a hole in it. The woman didn’t apologize and growled “Banderevtsi” at her!
Interesting testimony. Ruschians are so brilliant at taking what may be a genuine source of division inside a community, amplifying and mainstreaming it.
This is SO excellent, thank you. I do have an anecdotal story about the whole Stephan Bandera bogeyman meme. ruschia has been promoting this archetype for decades. Once upon a time in the mid 1990s, I lived and worked in Ukraine and had a lot of Ukrainian friends who were Gen Xers like me. Most were graduates of Shevchenko University and came from educated Ukrainian families that spoke Ukrainian at home and grew up speaking Ukrainian in the 70s and 80s. One of my girlfriends told me this story that happened to her: she was wearing a long maxi skirt that I had gifted her (it was still hard to get affordable, nice clothes in the 90s in Ukraine) and was riding a bus with a friend and they were having a lively conversation in Ukrainian. As they got off at their stop, this older woman behind them stepped on the maxi skirt and tore a hole in it. The woman didn’t apologize and growled “Banderevtsi” at her!
Interesting testimony. Ruschians are so brilliant at taking what may be a genuine source of division inside a community, amplifying and mainstreaming it.